Category Archives: reading

Goodies, Captured Critters & Politics

Posted on by August 4, 2017

Sort of a quick diary entry of our day, with our usual adventures with photography. Allergy shot today (only 28 more to go. LOL) Afterward, we had a joyful visit to Barnes & Noble (a rare treat these days) and got some goodies. Melissa bought me a pen-cup I loved, and we of course bought some books too. Tesla: The Life & Times of an Electric Messiah, Pocket Birds of North America, Speeches That Changed the World, The Total Outdoorsman (read: outdoorswoman–sexist bastards.) and a fabulous journal. On the way home, we saw a fox with an injured paw. Followed … Continue reading →

Thoughts on The Thief of Time by John Boyles I was intrigued by the idea of immortality, and the jaunt through history

Posted on by August 5, 2017

I have missed sitting down with a physical book and reading. My recent decision to take a sabbatical and just allow myself to be creative and deadline-free, had me standing in front of my fiction bookshelf, seeking something new. Something enjoyable. As most of you know by now, I have become quite finicky about my fiction reading. I read so much of my own work in pumping out work in the last ten years, that I have had little time to read for pleasure, and when I do, it’s inevitably just before I go to sleep, and by then, my … Continue reading →

Whole Brain Literary Food Novelwriting is a WHOLE BRAIN activity. So is the publishing business.

Posted on by August 5, 2017

Recently, I posted a inquiry to my readers, about a publishing aspect of my work. All the responses were encouraging and thought-provoking, but one in particular touched upon some deeper themes. Here it is. TO MY READERS–A QUESTION: As authors, we want to please everyone, but that’s just not possible. For instance, on my newest novella, Saturation Point, I have 4 and 5 star reviews and personal messages and emails that tell me how much they enjoyed the introspective nature of this book, and the characters, but on one review, the reviewer was bored because there wasn’t dialogue on every … Continue reading →

Writer as Reader, Reader as Writer

Posted on by August 15, 2016

I’m in a strange netherworld, literarily speaking. I love reading but only good books, and I am of course an author myself, and also a lesbian, and also an author who writes for lesbians, but also for what I see as the mainstream, discerning reader. Or maybe I think too highly of myself? I suppose we all have our delusions. Maybe. Maybe not. Anyway, I’ve been largely disappointed by the few novels I have tried by lesbian authors; I’m afraid I might have given up too soon (MAYBE. Maybe not). I really want to write in the mainstream, (And I … Continue reading →

Nonfiction & Non-nonfiction

Posted on by September 23, 2013

I’m not exactly firing on all cylinders lately, but I was thinking about this topic and then started writing it down, as I normally do, to sort out what I think about it, and decided I’d just blog it. It bothers me when anything is referred to as a negative of something else,  such as nonfiction is NOT fiction. Its only identity is about what it is NOT. Like Man and non-man.  Like white and non-white. Like yellow and non-yellow. I find it so pejorative, with this word in particular, and I wish there was another way to say “nonfiction” … Continue reading →

Going Mainstream

Posted on by June 11, 2013

CAUTION: FRUSTRATED RANT HOVERING NEARBY. When you find yourself, as a writer, lamenting about why you’re even writing at all, and entertaining the idea of not writing any more, something has to change. I’m growing more and more frustrated with, and weary of, the lack of support from Lesbian Readers for what I want to offer them. I am sick to death of their constant praise of bad writing in the LesFic market, and their unwillingness to demand better, and try anything out of their narrow reading interests. It’s painfully clear that most LesFic Readers have literary blinders, and will … Continue reading →

Scribe’s Melancholia, Literary Mind-Expansion & 50 Shades of Grape

Posted on by June 3, 2013

  I’m in a bit of a funk, a tizzy, a doldrum (take your pick) about writing at the moment. (I know it’s not just me, since my wife is also a writer, and  suffering the same condition–call it Scribe’s Melancholia. We’re having to seriously consider ignoring our book-marketing, because it’s so time-consuming and takes us away from what we’re really supposed to be doing–writing (Hello). Back to old-school, where writers were sequestered in a dark room with a candle and their muses, and never had to actually market themselves as a product, nor deal with their creations after they … Continue reading →